Preprints
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-3153
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2023-3153
10 Jan 2024
 | 10 Jan 2024

Towards a Harmonized Operational Earthquake Forecasting Model for Europe

Marta Han, Leila Mizrahi, and Stefan Wiemer

Abstract. We develop a harmonized earthquake forecasting model for Europe based on the Epidemic-type Aftershock Sequence (ETAS) model to describe the spatio-temporal evolution of aftershock sequences. We propose a method modification that integrates information from the European Seismic Hazard Model (ESHM20) about the spatial variation of background seismicity during ETAS parameter inversion based on the expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm. Other modifications to the basic ETAS model are explored, namely fixing the productivity term to a higher value to balance the more productive triggering by high-magnitude events with their much rarer occurrence, and replacing the b-value estimate with one relying on the b-positive method to observe the possible effect of short-term incompleteness on model parameters. Retrospective and pseudo-prospective tests demonstrate that ETAS-based models outperform the time-independent benchmark model as well as an ETAS model calibrated on global data. The background-informed ETAS variant achieves the highest score in the pseudo-prospective experiment, but the performance difference to the second-best model is not significant. Our findings highlight promising areas for future exploration, such as avoiding the simplification of using a single b-value for the entire region or reevaluating the completeness of the used seismic catalogs.

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Marta Han, Leila Mizrahi, and Stefan Wiemer

Status: final response (author comments only)

Comment types: AC – author | RC – referee | CC – community | EC – editor | CEC – chief editor | : Report abuse
  • RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2023-3153', Anonymous Referee #1, 31 Jan 2024
    • AC1: 'Reply on RC1', Marta Han, 30 Apr 2024
  • RC2: 'Comment on egusphere-2023-3153', Maximilian Werner, 26 Apr 2024
    • AC2: 'Reply on RC2', Marta Han, 30 Apr 2024
Marta Han, Leila Mizrahi, and Stefan Wiemer
Marta Han, Leila Mizrahi, and Stefan Wiemer

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Latest update: 15 Oct 2024
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Short summary
Relying on recent accomplishments in collecting and harmonizing data by the 2020 European Seismic Hazard Model (ESHM20) and leveraging advancements in state-of-the-art earthquake forecasting methods, we develop a harmonized earthquake forecasting model for Europe. We propose several model variants and test them on training data for consistency and on a seven-year testing period against each other, as well as against both a time-independent benchmark and a global time-dependent benchmark.